


---

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9393965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: WIP. Probably won't get finished.





	

                “Does he… do that often?” The utter bemusement was evident in Jessika Pava’s voice even as she said it, eyes tracking the golden protocol weaving his way between workbenches, occasionally pausing to inspect – or obtain – yet another spare part. Already in his arms he clutched a teetering pile – an assortment of wires and modules, all in various states of disrepair.

                The reply to her question came from a smaller, red-haired woman, hunched over and tinkering away at what appeared to be a severed LEP unit’s head. “Hm? Oh, Threepio? Yeah, only on Tuesdays though. He’s punctual like that.” The woman – a droid technician, going by her outfit and clear expertise – tapped her wrench gently against the LEP unit’s cranial dome, frowning slightly. 

                Jessika watched the woman work for a moment, the deft – but lightly scarred (peppered mostly by grazes and burn marks; Jessika knew them by sight) – hands reaching into an open panel on the unfortunate servant droid, digging around, picking apart its innards. “Why, exactly?” she finally asked, no less bewildered than before.

                “We’re not certain—well, we _are_. Or, not exactly. We have a pretty good _idea_ , that’s for sure. But we’re a science-y lot, ya know? No evidence to back it up, they brush our pretty solid hypothesis off rather easily. Frankly, no-one talks to C-3PO much to _know_. I certainly don’t! I mean, I’ve tried to, but he’s always so _busy_ – spymaster of the Resistance, the General’s personal droid… always work to be done—no time to chat, though I daresay he loves it. Can’t shut him up once he gets going, but that’s not so often these days, really—“ The woman cut off suddenly, having just glanced up from her ministrations to meet the eyes of the increasingly-confused X-wing pilot shifting awkwardly mere steps away. She cleared her throat, set aside her wrench, and shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry. Guess he and I have a few things in common,” she paused a moment, then, in a firm voice, stated simply: “it’s Artoo.”

                Jessika hummed lightly, nodding – finally, something familiar. She knew of the astromech in question – how could she not? He was all C-3PO ever spoke about the few times they could meet and swap tales. The last session (she scrunched her nose up slightly at such a clinical word) had been months ago, though. She’d never seen him as quiet as he had been as of late – no matter how welcoming her greeting, she would only ever get a curt nod in response, before the golden droid would shuffle off down the hallway, servomotors whining as he barrelled onwards. “R2-D2. Yeah, I know of him. Wasn’t he deactivated years ago, though?”

                “Mhm, but _willingly_.” The droid technician leaned forward, grasping a toolbox at the other end of her workbench and dragging it roughly towards her. A name penned haphazardly on the outer shell revealed the woman’s identity – Tera. Or it might’ve been Tero. Or Tara. Jessika squinted a little. No, definitely Tera. “See, he was sad, I guess, when Luke went away. Luke Skywalker. You know him, right? Right. Okay, so he was pretty sad, and… he just gave up. I suppose. I don’t know. I study droids all my life and they’re as confusing and unpredictable as ever. He was brought in for diagnostics – Threepio always close at his heel. Wheel? Tread? Whatever. We didn’t find anything _wrong_ with him. He just… shut down. Been running on low-power ever since – can only begin to imagine the _mess_ it’s made of his data stores.” Tera tutted, finally finding what she had been looking for in the metal box, and promptly jamming it into the LEP unit’s (currently empty) eyesocket. There was a burst of energy, a sharp pop, followed by sizzle as something Jessika _presumed_ to be important started to smoulder. She didn’t comment.

                “Anyway, we don’t see Threepio for _months_ \-- doesn’t turn up for scheduled maintenance, systems analysis… Just, _boom_ , gone. Well—not boom. He didn’t explode. Oh, wow. That’d be unfortunate.” Tera straightened and started laughing, but the noise was abruptly cut off by a raised brow from Jessika herself. The technician sniffed, then bent back down to assess the tool-inflicted damage. “One day he just appears again, in a bit of a flurry, talking up a storm. Swear he went through like three languages a minute, he did. Walters told me it was Galactic Standard, but I don’t know—I didn’t understand half of it.” The LEP unit sparked, Tera jumping back slightly to avoid the wayward flares. “He was going on about— about… an R2 unit, y’know? Asking us if we had any repair manuals, spare parts… that sort of stuff. Of course, we did. Our supplies were limited, but they were there. Don’t have too many R2 units on the base at the moment, and they’ve got some pretty unique modules – we’d amassed a stockpile of scrapped parts, though. So he goes over, starts digging through them – I thought I heard him curse a few times, but Walters says I’ve got a brain like bantha fodder at the best of times, so I’m not so sure.”

                Jessika listened intently, glancing up occasionally at the protocol droid in question, who was still milling about the far end of the room, engaged in what appeared to be lively conversation with an aging tech far too weary to rebuke the excited droid’s words. _A protocol droid interested in parts? Repair manuals?_ _That’s a new one,_ she mused.

                Tera continued, evidently unaware of the discussion transpiring before her. “And then he turns, demands we teach him the ins and outs of droid maintenance – and whatever else could we do, y’know? He was pretty insistent. So we gave him the guides, directed him to the data uplinks, showed him the parts… and then off he went, just like that. Things started disappearing a few days after. At first, it was small – a bundle of wiring, a battered old Harris wrench… nothing important. We didn’t mind. We thought Coaxley was just being as forgetful as ever. He’s bad for it, that one. And then the bigger stuff started going too—astromech treads, durasteel panelling… we had a thief on our hands, and a pretty smart one at that. Nobody ever saw a thing. Got to the point that we called in a security team to guard the tech bay through the night, and eventually the culprit turned up again, quite conspicuously.”

                “Threepio,” Jessika said with a nod, echoed by Tera herself.

                “Yeah. Threepio—and then it clicked. He was taking the parts to… build an astromech? Maybe? We weren’t sure. See, we thought it was for Artoo, but nobody had seen him for months—he was deactivated, no more than dead weight, and probably long since scrapped. It wasn’t a _logical_ conclusion, so we brushed it off. You know how droids love their logic. When we asked him about it, he didn’t lie—he just, didn’t tell the truth, either. Dodged the question in that annoyingly wordy way of protocol droids, and then he was off. After that, he didn’t even make it a secret, taking the parts. Just showed up on time, every week, took what he needed, and was gone again. It worked _fine_ , but—we were running low.” Tera brushed her fingertips over the LEP unit’s right ear, before grasping it at the base, revolving it fully, clearly lost in thought. The ball joint made a soft crunching noise as it rotated, and the technician frowned down at it, immediately reaching for her toolbox again.

                “On R2 parts? Couldn’t you just salvage more? Cargo ships bring in recovered supplies all the time—surely there was a droid or two amongst them, right?” Jessika shifted on one foot, then crossed her arms over her chest, watching the other woman set to work again. How she could ever understand the intricacies of a droid’s innards was beyond Pava. “Even my squadron’s brought back scrap from time to time.”

                “R2 units are pretty outdated by now—they’re robust, but anyone with enough credits to own a ship and, therefore, warrant the use of an astromech, would presumably also have enough to set aside for a few upgrades,” the ear Tera was working on clicked back into its proper place, swivelling freely on its axis, “so most of them have already been broken down, or are on their way out. You go through times where you’re inundated with parts, and times where the storage units have certainly seen better days.” Tera shrugged, idly spinning the repaired droid appendage.

                Jessika stared for a moment, then shrugged. “Next time Blue Squadron’s on a sub-atmospheric patrol, I’ll tell them to have a look-out. I’m sure we’ll turn up something.”

                Tera gave her a grateful smile, then continued on in her tale. “Anyway, Coaxley comes to us one day, all excited—says he’s found a deactivated R2 unit in storage, parts all in order, and in good shape. Prattles off a random room number, and off he goes. We were pretty excited, I admit. Don’t get too many R2 units round here to repair, but some components are pretty much universally compatible. So we trail after him, head to the room he told us—an old, abandoned meeting place. We guessed it was just for storage at this point.


End file.
